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Thailand backpacking adventure part III

Ayutthaya the old Capital, the Wats and a 10 hour train ride to Chiang Mai!

 

It took more then an hour after the minibus had collected us and before we left town…

Picking up other people around town, with some not showing up..

Eventually we were off…  the ride took about 3 hours in total and we arrived at our guest house called Baan Kong Homestay at around five o’clock..

We checked in and followed the daughter of the host to our very nice wooden cabin ..

We were so pleased, that we directly booked another night..

After an hour chillin’ in our air conditioning cooled room and enjoying a beer I bought around the corner from the nearest 7/11, we wandered outside, to check the neighbourhood and find a place to eat..

We were located very close to the two major Wats, the Wat Ratchaburana and the Wat Phra Mahathat., these were the main Temples from old Siam’s capital, what Ayutthaya was in the 15 to 17 hundredths until it was sacked by the Burmese invaiders around 1760. Most of the buildings were ruined or burned down during this invasion.

It was hard to find anything of our liking or what was open and or where they had what we wanted, there was not of choice of drinks on the menu, beer was fine for me, but for Dhyana the choice was limited to basically water or cola, as wine was hard to fetch or probably not worth trying and buying..

Some places were loud or close to the busy road or that bright lighted you felt like being in a bright mall..

When we found something we thought was nice and we had ordered food, it turned out to be the least tasty we had so far on our holiday.

After dinner we returned home and cooled down, watching some series or movie before falling asleep.

Next morning we went to the corner of our street to have a good coffee and a nice breakfast at Say’s. After breakfast we rented two bikes and headed for the station. The station is on the outside of the “island” (as the old part of Ayutthaya is surrounded by three rivers) so we took the little ferry to cross the river. We got our tickets for next day’s 09:48 train to Chiang Mai. Then we got on our bicycles again and visited the floating market, an over commercialised area where the vendors boats are not floating anymore, but dried out next to the planking that surrounds the water basin.. the only boats were the ones touring around the pond with the tourists… all the stalls seem to sell the same stuff and food…. outside the market there were elephant rides to get around some ruined Wats. We left the scene after feeling a bit ripped off with the experience.. we returned to the busy road and crossed it to have a look at the Baan Hollandia, once the head quarters of the VOC (United EastIndia Company) that was stationed there. From 1604 until 1762. Only the foundation is left of it but the Dutch royals financed a small cultural house to explain the connection of the Dutch with the Siam trades in spices, rice, etc. Unfortunately the building was closed Mondays and Tuesdays.. we returned over the bridge to the old city and went back to our Baan Kong homestay.. It was hot in the day time, over 35 degrees ( in the shade!!)

After a few hours in our cooled hideaway we went out again and started our wat excursion..

As we are not highly cultural orientated people, we only really visited the two Wats mentioned above, especially Wat Phra Mahathat was the more interesting one of the two as it has the famous Buddha head entangled by the bodi tree.

After touring the city for an hour trying to find a nice place for dinner and scoring some more needed drinking water we booked a table at Malakor, a restaurant around the corner of our cabin and the most appealing.

Keith joined us for dinner. Dhyana and I had pad Thai, most likely the last one for a while as it seems there will be non of this to be found in the north..

After dinner we strolled back to our cabin, while Keith biked back to his in record time, chased by the dogs in the night!

 

Next morning we had our last breakfast at Say, before our flashy green tuk – tuk collected us and drove us and Keith, who we collected on the way, to the railway station.

We boarded our air conditioned full service train (who came 20 minutes late) and settled for the 10 hour ride to Chiang Mai nearly 400 km more to the north in the Thailand mountain range.

 

We decided not to visit Khao Yai National Park because it would take of to much time traveling there and back, we also skipped Lopburi to be able to spent some more time in the north. However we did see the monkeys while passing the town in train.

 

Driving north the jungle got more dens, we climbed the mountains and the temperature went down in the train at least and made us wear our sweatshirts for the first time again since arriving in Bangkok.